


my reflection (in your eyes)

by faikitty



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faikitty/pseuds/faikitty
Summary: Fai doesn't like mirrors.





	my reflection (in your eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> Kurofai Week 2018 Day 1: Mirrors. A day late with the prompt taken extremely literally (bc I brought it up on Twitter and was met with a resounding chorus of “no” and “do not,” so naturally I had to). Set sometime between Reservoir and World.

Fai doesn’t like mirrors.

Kurogane doesn’t know _why_ ; he isn’t even entirely sure when he noticed this, but somewhere down the road he became aware of Fai’s complete avoidance of the things. It’s not just mirrors, either; Fai avoids _anything_ reflective, be it mirrors, pots, or even still water smooth enough to cast a vague image of himself back. Most people pause for a moment when they pass by a shop window that they can see themselves in. Fai turns away as if on instinct, his gaze never matching that of his reflection for even a second.

Kurogane has his theories. As much as he’s loathe to admit it, the mage takes up a significant portion of his thoughts. A great many of the thoughts are about kissing away the soft sadness that seems to have settled permanently on his face, but sometimes Kurogane can spare his time for other things, like wondering why a man who is well aware of his own attractiveness avoids mirrors like the plague.

It could be superstition. Kurogane knows of lands with stories about mirrors who have captured people’s souls if they look into them for too long. Or maybe Fai just doesn’t care about how he looks and can’t be bothered. But neither of those ideas explain why he refuses to even give his reflection a passing glance.

Mostly, Kurogane thinks Fai just doesn’t like what he sees.

Kurogane finds himself trying to wrap his mind around the mage’s strange habits again as he sits on the bed near Fai in the room they’re sharing in this world, a book in his hands that he _was_ reading and keeps telling himself he’ll go back to reading anytime now, anytime. Fai doesn’t seem to notice him staring; he’s too busy frowning at the unfurled ribbon and mess of pins spread out haphazardly on the table in front of him. Fai’s gaze goes to the middle distance as he attempts to tie his hair back with the ribbon, and just when Kurogane thinks it’s going to work this time, the ribbon comes untied as if it were cursed to never keep Fai’s hair up. Fai’s bangs fall back in his face and he huffs a sigh of frustration.

“You’re making me tired,” Kurogane complains as Fai gathers up the ribbon to try again. “That might work better if you could see what you were doing.”

Fai glances up and makes a face that’s somewhere between a scowl and a pout. “It wouldn’t help. My hair is a bad length right now. It’s too short to tie back, but it’s long enough that it keeps getting in my face.” He looks back down and picks up a pin to examine it thoughtfully, like maybe _this_ is the magic pin that will do the trick.

Kurogane watches him for another few seconds in silence. Then he closes his book and sets it on the blanket beside him, curiosity finally getting the better of him. “I’ve been wondering about something.” Fai makes a quiet sound of acknowledgment but doesn’t look up, so Kurogane continues bluntly. “What’s with you and mirrors?”

 _That_ gets Fai’s attention.

He freezes, pin halfway to his head, and lets down both the pin and the hair he was holding up with his other hand. “What do you mean?” he asks, voice light and face lighter.

“You avoid them.”

“I do _not_.”

Kurogane frowns. He’s been on this runaround with Fai before, and he doesn’t like it. “I’ve been watching you fail to tie your hair back for fifteen minutes now, a problem that could be easily solved if you would just use a damn mirror. But you won’t, even though there’s one in the next room.”

“Watching me, hm?” Fai’s lips quirk up in a pleased grin, his eyes going softer, shoulders gentler, as Kurogane watches him grasp at this chance to escape. “I would’ve made things more interesting for you if I’d realized that.”

Kurogane’s frown deepens, brows knitting together in irritation. He knows Fai well enough to know when he’s dodging a question. Hell, he had Fai pinned down as an evasive liar from the moment the mage opened his mouth. Fai may be more honest now, but he’s still evasive, still has secrets buried so deeply inside of him that Kurogane doesn’t know he’ll ever unearth them all. He doesn’t know if he wants to, either, because as curious as he may be about Fai, he doesn’t like that look Fai gets when he asks things he isn’t supposed to, pries just a little too hard and reopens cracks that were never fully sealed to begin with.

Fai looks _sad_ when Kurogane asks about this sort of thing—sad and _scared_ , like he’s worried that maybe _this_ is the secret that will finally make Kurogane hate him.

So Kurogane doesn’t reply. He holds Fai’s gaze for a few more seconds then sighs and looks down, grabbing his book again and opening it back up to what he _thinks_ is the page he left it on (to be honest, he wasn’t really paying attention to most of the last chapter). He feels Fai’s eyes on him for several more seconds. Then they’re gone, most likely turned back to the ribbon and pins. Seconds of silence—not awkward but heavy—drag into minutes, and Kurogane is just about to return to reading for real when he hears Fai stand and pad over to him.

“It’s a stupid reason,” Fai admits quietly as he sits next to Kurogane and folds his hands in his lap, eyes fixed on the ribbon he has twined through his fingers. “My reflection reminds me of Fai.”

Kurogane is confused, thinking at first that Fai has lost it completely. Then his mind goes blank and skips for a moment as he remembers that the mage’s name isn’t actually _Fai_ but _Yuui_. Yuui, the one who stole both his life and his name from his twin brother—except that no, he didn’t, because the _real_ Fai gave up his life for him, and Yuui took his name to keep him _alive_ in the only way he could.

A faint, wry laugh is what draws Kurogane out of his head and makes him realize he spent the last few seconds staring in silence. “I told you it was stupid,” Fai—Yuui, Fai, whoever he is now, he’s still _him_ —says self-consciously. “I know. But I can’t help it. We have the same face. I can’t look at myself without seeing him looking back at me. No matter which one of us had survived, it would be the same face in the mirror.” He swallows hard and twists the ribbon around his fingers tighter, tightly enough that Kurogane can see his skin change color. “I look like what he would if he’d been able to get older, so I—”

Kurogane doesn’t _punch_ Fai (it may be more fun, but it probably isn’t _healthy_ ). He just grabs Fai’s hair and ruffles it with enough force for Fai to cut himself off with a startled, pained yelp.

It works. Fai lets go of the ribbon that was cutting off circulation to his fingers so he can reach up and grab Kurogane’s arm with both hands instead to jerk it away from his head. He glares up at Kurogane through his now even messier bangs, both stunned into silence and slightly wounded.

Kurogane gazes placidly down as Fai huffs a strand of hair out of his mouth. “It is stupid,” Kurogane agrees. Genuine hurt flits over Fai’s face for an instance before he smooths it down, lifting his head and lowering Kurogane’s arm. “But I get it. I look a lot like my father. Sometimes it’s hard not to see him when I look in the mirror.”

Fai blinks. Then he blinks again, the hurt in his eyes replaced with surprised affection instead. He loosens his grip on Kurogane’s arm so he can twine his fingers through Kurogane’s, the ribbon forgotten in his lap. He leans forward and kisses Kurogane gently, a chaste kiss on the corner of his lips, and when he pulls back Fai looks like he can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry. “You’re awfully honest tonight, Kuro-tan,” he says instead.

Kurogane scoffs and rolls his eyes. Instinct tells him to snap back with exaggerated annoyance, but Fai is smiling a certain smile that’s so rare for him, one he always has after he reveals something to Kurogane or Syaoran or Sakura that he was worried would make them think less of him but _didn’t_ (Kurogane had thought Fai would have learned by now that he’s stuck with the lot of them). So instead, he pulls Fai into his arms, feeling a strange sense of pride when Fai turns automatically so he can lean back against him.

Fai tilts his head back against Kurogane’s chest with a contented sigh as he closes his eyes and runs his thumb over the back of Kurogane’s hand. “My brother would have liked you, you know,” Fai murmurs. “He would have liked anyone who made me happy.”

Kurogane watches Fai cringe as his own words hit his ears, skin going two shades darker with the quickening of his pulse. “Happy, hm?” Kurogane repeats. Fai groans and buries his face in his hands, but he doesn’t move to get up, and he lets Kurogane drag his hands back down even though his cheeks are no less flushed than they were five seconds ago. “ _That_ was stupid.”

“Yeah,” Fai admits, “it was.” His eyes flick open and up at Kurogane before closing again in another rush of embarrassment. But he’s still smiling, still warm and relaxed in Kurogane’s arms, and most of all, still _honest_.

Kurogane forgets at times that Fai is still struggling to become his own person after years of living with secrets, lies, an entire _identity_ that revolved around a falsehood. He seems so self-assured, so content in his own skin, that it’s easy to miss all the subtle cues that even his confidence is an act. But he’s learning to be open and honest.

Sometimes, all Kurogane has to do is ask.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Reflection" by The Neighborhood, which is kind of on the nose given the prompt but is also a good song. Apparently this is how I name things now.


End file.
